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editor's note T By RANDI ALTMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF raltman@postmagazine.com Getting started he legacy of Star Wars just keeps on giving. Not only were the films blockbusters, they set a new standard for filmmaking and set an entire generation on a path to filmmaking. One of the features in this month's issue looks at how pros got their start (page 20). Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark were turning points for many, including Andrew Kirejew, VFX supervisor/ partner at Toronto's Township & Company. "For me, it all started with Lego and Star Wars," he says. "It then progressed to model airplane kits. I would attach my kit airplanes and Lego models to fishing wire and smash them all together." He started shooting video in high school — "all kinds, music videos, art stuff. We had a Video Toaster and I'd shoot videos, add effects, do some animation in LightWave, and put it all together." He ended up going to film school at Sheridan College. "I wanted to create visual effects from the get-go, but they didn't have anything like that at the time. We had to choose from film, video and mul- timedia majors; I took multimedia." After gradua- tion he interned at Axyz in Toronto. "I worked my way up from intern to partner in 10 years, from Henry to Flame and everything in between." Late last year he partnered up with Ron Ger- vais, Dave Greene and Axyz to start the new studio Township & Company, a multi-disciplinary POST SCRIPT NLE battles I By MARC LOFTUS SENIOR EDITOR mloftus@postmagazine.com recently moderated a panel at the SXSW show in Austin, TX. The topic focused on pros who made the switch from Apple's Final Cut Pro to Adobe's Premiere Pro, and in each case were using Dell workstations (T5500 or T7500) configured with Nvidia (Quadro and/or Tesla) graphics cards. Dell and Nvidia teamed up to create a "switch" program in which those considering making a move could be assured that the con- figurations the companies came up with have been optimized for maximum performance and certified by Adobe. The panelists included Andrew Baldwin of RD&F Advertising, Erik Horn of Arts & Labor, Tom Baurain of The Red Owl and James Fox of Dawnrunner Produc- tions. All work on different types of projects, ranging from agency jobs, to music videos, to live events, and each had relied on FCP as their editing solution. That was up until last year, when FCP X came out. Talking with the panelists, each had a differ- ent reason for wanting to make the switch. In 2 Post • April 2012 Tom Baurain's case, his Mac had reached the end of its lifecycle and he was in the market for a new NLE. In James Fox's case, his studio was already looking at new NLEs and couldn't wait for another version of FCP X to come along to add features his studio was already accustomed to using. For the most part, the panelists all agreed they couldn't wait — they had to move on. In the case of Premiere, each was impressed with the native Red support — no plug-ins needed — no transcoding necessary. This alone, they agreed, was worth the switch. So score some points for Premiere in this case. But that doesn't mean Apple — or Avid for that matter — have been sitting idle. In this issue, we have Reviews of both NLEs, which have been adding to their pro feature sets. FCP 10.0.3, for example, has a new sync audio fea- ture that can help editors easily deal with cam- eras that don't record timecode. Give them a read and let us know where you stand on the NLE battlefront? www.postmagazine.com design, animation and VFX studio. Jim Geduldick, shooter, VFX artist, compositor, got into this business from his start as a sponsored skateboarder and snowboarder. him pictured. That's "As a kid growing up skating, my first camera was a Fisher Price PXL 2000, and I was always in awe of visual effects with all the early ILM work. Later on I was a sponsored rider and always had a camera to film friends, and if I didn't wind up qualifying at some of the events I just filmed everyone. I wound up teaching myself how to edit all the footage. I was capturing and using graphics programs like Photoshop and After Effects." No schooling involved; he was self-taught. Geduldick says a lot of the art and culture of skateboarding and snowboarding shaped his influ- ences. "Some opportunities came about because of skateboarding/snowboarding as well — a lot of people in skateboarding cross over to commer- cials, music videos and features, like Spike Jonze, Ty Evans, Jose Gomez and Stacey Peralta. EDITORIAL Senior Editor/Director of Web Content (516) 376-1087 raltman@postmagazine.com MARC LOFTUS RANDI ALTMAN Editor-in-Chief (516) 797-0884 mloftus@postmagazine.com CHRISTINE BUNISH Film& Video RON DICESARE Audio European Correspondent bob.pank@virgin.net BOB PANK DAN RESTUCCIO West Coast Bureau dansweb451@aol.com West Coast Blogger/Reporter BARRY GOCH IAIN BLAIR Film mviggiano@postmagazine.com MICHAEL VIGGIANO Art Director ADVERTISING NATASHA SWORDS VP, Marketing (818) 291-1112 nswords@copcomm.com (818) 291-1153 cell: (818) 472-1491 mkohn@postmagazine.com MARI KOHN Director of Sales Eastern & Intl Sales Manager (631) 274-9530 cell (516)410-8638 grhodes@copcomm.com GARY RHODES CHRIS SALCIDO Account Manager (818) 291-1144 csalcido@copprints.com opt 2 (publishing), opt 1 (subscriptions) 620 West Elk Ave, Glendale, CA 91204 csr@postmagazine.com (800) 280 6446 CUSTOMER SERVICE (781) 255-0625 • (818) 291-1153 REPRINTS Reprints LA SALES OFFICE: 620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, California 91204 (800) 280-6446 WILLIAM R. 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